Summer of ’63 I took the red eye
out of O’Hare, arrived back at LAX
without a clue that city buses didn’t
connect that time of night. So, I
shared a cab with a sailor I met
on the curb and headed downtown
to the Greyhound bus depot.
Left the sailor to catch his bus
to Lemoore, lugged my large
1940 style suitcase—the one
I borrowed from my landlady—
down east Fifth street. At the corner
of Central, a wino grabbed the handle
said he’d help with my load. I told
him to get lost—then realized
he already was. Just seventeen,
I didn’t know I’d landed in the middle
of The Nickel—L.A.’s skid row.
Followed the directions the guy
at the depot gave me. Managed
to navigate south to Alameda,
caught the number 62 bus to Bell—
crazy name for a city. I was crazier
for living there. Got off at Gage
and Atlantic, dragged that damn suitcase
I wished I’d never seen several more
blocks to the burger joint where I worked,
parked it at a picnic table outside, waited
for the place to open. The sun came up, struck
my blood-shot eyes like a splash of iodine.
Pat West calls Portland, OR home for now. Her work appears in Labyrinth: Poems and Prose, An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11, Listening to the Birth of Crystals, and various webzines.
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